Septimius Severus, 193 – 211. Aureus, possibly struck in India circa 193-211, AV 20 mm, 7.15 g. IMPER A EL SEPTI – SEVER PERT III Laureate head r. Rev. CONCORDI ΛVGVSRVM RTP III Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, each bareheaded, togate, and holding rolls, standing vis-à-vis, clasping hands; in exergue, COS IIIII. C –. BMC –. RIC –. Calicó –. cf. NAC sale 102, 2017, 531 (these dies). Of the highest rarity, apparently the second specimen known of a previously unpublished type. An interesting portrait and a fascinating and symbolic reverse composition. Perfectly struck and centred on a full flan. Virtually as struck and FdcGraded Ch MS, Strike: 5/5, Surface: 5/5, NGC photo certificate number 8218933-001 This lustrous and unique aureus is notable for its peculiar legends and for its reverse type, which seems to imitate earlier CONCORDIA AVGVSTOR aurei of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. Septimius Severus' usual dynastic CONCORDIA AVGVSTORVM types depict Severus and his eldest son Caracalla clasping hands with Victory between them or the brothers Caracalla and Geta (both beardless) clasping hands in an attempt to gloss over the fraternal hatred between them. Both of these Severan types look back to the Aurelius and Verus type represented on the present coin, but no other Severan issue copies the earlier type exactly. This has led to the suggestion that the present coin is actually an imitative hybrid struck by a facility copying dies for both Severan and Antonine aurei. This possibility is reinforced by the errors in the legends. The obverse titulature identifies Severus as PERT III, probably representing the abbreviated name of Pertinax, the assassinated emperor whom he succeeded, and the total corruption of the expected title AVG to III (since Septimius Severus is already described as IMPER at the beginning of his titulature on this coin, it excludes the possibility of the III as an indicator of imperatorial acclamation). Severus was acclaimed imperator for the third time in A.D. 194, and almost immediately after, again for the fourth time in 194/5. Thus IMPER III may be incompatible with the TRP III (misspelled as RTP III) of the reverse. Severus held tribunician powers (tribunicia potestas) for the third time in 195, and the consular date COS IIIII is simply nonsensical (like Marcus Aurelius, Severus only held the consulship three times). The aureus of Aurelius upon which the reverse is based is dated in the exergue to his second consulship. The main inscription of the reverse also reads AVGORVM rather than the expected AVGVSTORVM. Please find here the video of the coin